Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
